Zoom Partners with Medical Scribe Provider Suki to Enhance Patient Care with AI
Tech giant Zoom (CA, U.S.) has announced a new partnership with Suki (CA, U.S.), an AI startup that has secured $70 million in funding to generate clinical notes for medical providers. The video-conferencing platform will be using Suki’s AI-powered medical scribing services to record patient data and take notes during visits, allowing physicians to invest more time in patient interaction.
Telehealth: A Modern Solution for Enhanced Healthcare
Lately, the growth of telehealth has been increasingly transforming the current perception of medicine. This relatively new concept offers innovative approaches to patient care, enhancing the accessibility of medical treatments and reducing wait times by enabling patients to consult with professionals from home.
According to data from the American Medical Association, more than 74% of clinicians worked in medical environments that provided telehealth services in 2022. Patient videoconferencing was one of the main key factors for this growth, as it saw an increase from 14.3% in 2018 to 66.3% in 2022, more than four times higher.
In this context, Zoom has become an essential communication tool for healthcare, leading the telehealth industry with nearly 36% market share. Now, the tech giant plans to employ Suki’s AI engine to produce clinical notes by incorporating AI capabilities into its solution. To support this initiative, Suki has secured $70 million in Series D funding.
This collaboration is not an isolated case: other tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have already united forces with AI developers to enhance modern medicinal practices and improve patient care.
“With over almost 140,000 healthcare institutions globally using the Zoom platform, we feel a great responsibility to leverage the power of AI to drive employee productivity and enhance patient experiences. Working together with Suki to provide critical AI-generated clinical note functionality to Zoom Workplace for Clinicians will reduce documentation overhead for clinicians, allowing them to focus on patients.”
Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer at Zoom.
Leveraging Medical Scribing to Streamline Healthcare Administration
Research from the Mayo Clinic indicates that AI-driven clinical notes can cut physician note-taking time by as much as 70%.
Zoom’s partnership with Suki could reduce the time doctors invest in tedious and time-draining admin tasks, reduce patient wait times, facilitate the continued growth of virtual healthcare services, and potentially improve patient access and outcomes globally. Additionally, Suki’s AI-driven technology can enhance the accuracy and efficiency of patient documentation, leading to quicker, more personalized care for patients.
“AI is changing the way we interact with the world. Everything from how we communicate to how we use technology to how care is delivered will evolve. Video will be a critical interface in the AI-driven world. We are thrilled to work with Zoom to develop new interaction models and AI that will advance our mission of making healthcare technology invisible and assistive so clinicians can focus on what’s most important: their patients.”
Punit Soni, Suki founder and CEO
Potential Challenges Ahead
The partnership between Zoom and Suki, along with recent research regarding similar uses of ambient AI tools suggests AI’s potential to enhance the process of clinical note generation and patient consultations.
Moreover, AI has also demonstrated significant potential to contribute to advancements in various areas of modern healthcare. Some examples include ongoing research on ‘programmable genetics’, early breast cancer detection and fetal health prediction, among others.
However, these prospects come with significant obstacles. AI faces remarkable challenges, recently there have been concerns regarding its reliable, ethical and safe application in healthcare. Some of these concerns include the appropriate clinical validation of devices, patient data breaches and biases inherent in AI systems that may lead to inaccurate clinical judgments.
An example of this is the recent issue with OpenAI’s popular transcription tool, Whisper, which has been accused of “hallucinating” text—transcribing medical information that was never said.
These concerns are currently hindering AI’s capacity to establish itself as a reliable tool in healthcare. However, traditional medical practices could potentially benefit from such groundbreaking tools, which could have the ability to improve healthcare outcomes for patients in the future — if regulated adequately.